Dat Chu's Blog

University of Houston Asian Alumni Association scholarship

2008-07-02T04:32:00Z

Back in May, I received a letter that inform me I am the recipient of 2008 Asian Alumni Association Scholarship. Yay.

However, today I got back the acceptance letter which I replied to the Association back in May from USPS. On the front is a stamp that says: Unclaimed, Returned to Sender. The good news is I did send this acceptance letter with certified mail. The bad news is the deadline for acceptance has passed.

I honestly don't know what to do? The address to be sent to was a PO Box. What would be a good courtesy to follow in official letters like this? Should I have called them up 15 days after sending out the mail and not receiving any other response?

Thoughts after my parents’ visit

2008-06-11T04:04:00Z

My parents came all the way from Vietnam to attend my graduation ceremony back in May. Their trip finished yesterday. As the writing of this post, they should be landing in Vietnam after a 28 hours flight (and transfer). Their visits have left quite a few thoughts on me.

Firstly, I realize more than ever that family comes first. I notice that my parents are much older than their images that I still have in my mind. I feel shorter than ever the time that I have with them. Coupling this with my choice of pursuing a higher degree, my vision of the day when I am able to show them how successful their child can be is even more distant.

Second, I need to try harder. I had a chance to walk with my dad every morning in a park near my apartment. During this short period everyday, he tells me little stories about my paternal family. The stories of how my grandparents survived the Vietnam war being caught between the grips from both side resonates within me the most. I lost all my grandparents while I study in the States. Now, they won't be able to see me be the first person in my family to get a Ph.D. This reminds me that I need to try even harder; for the cost that I have incurred during my study is both expensive and non-recoverable.

Third, I need to learn how to cook. My mom cooks quite well. Her food is both simple and practical (not to mention quite delicious). I realize that in order for me to become a grown adult, I need to be able to take care of my most basic need: food. I don't have to be able to cook some extravagant dishes but I should be able to at least make simple ones.

Overall, my parents' visit change many ways that I look at things around me. I am now ready for the challenges ahead. It's time for me to walk in life.

I bought my first song from Amazon

2008-06-06T17:18:00Z

In the support to Amazon DRM-free music, Jonanthan Coulton, GLaDOS and Valve (for their awesome Portal Game), I have bought "Still Alive" song from Amazon ^_^. It feels great. Valve rocks. It is now #1 on par with Blizzard in my best game list and #2 on my employer list.

Portal is an awesome game

2008-06-06T00:27:00Z

I finished Portal in one straight run without consulting any guide in 2.6 hours. This game is amazing. The puzzle are nicely put together. Its graphic is more than decent. I fall in love with the ending music ^_^. Its subliminal messages are just genius. So great that I have to reference it here for your comfortable viewing experience.

Sweet, I lost my 4.0

2008-05-15T14:12:00Z

This might come as unnatural but I honestly feel great. Since I received an A- on my Computer Scientist and Society class this semester, my 4.0 track record is ruined. While I feel that Dr. Leiss' grading policy is a bit eccentric, I still respect the effort and vigor that he puts into his class.

What this leaves me now is a reminder that I have to try harder in everything that I do. As one says (and I summarizes): It is not possible to achieve perfection. But if you aim for it, you might reach exellence.

Silent my new computer

2008-05-06T02:52:00Z

One of the biggest grief that I have with my new computer is the fact that it is much louder than my own one. I traced the components down and figured out that the free-after-rebate Coolermaster PSU is the culprit. So right after I receive the full rebate for this product, I went out and try to mute it. Alas, the internet came to rescue. Somebody mentioned swapping out the fan of the PSU. I have never tried messing with the PSU before, but for the sake of learning, I gave it a go anyway.

I looked around for silent fan. At first I thought I would give a Vantec 120mm a go as I have read some good reviews about it. But then, since Directron carries a Scythe S-Flex 120mm 1200RPM for $12, I made the purchase and picked it up the same day. There are other version of this fan too that runs at 1600 RPM or 800 RPM. Reviews say that this fan is very quiet despite its rating is 20dBA. I would definitely recommend the 1200RPM version from my experience with it.

The disassembling process was quite straight forward but then I came across a minor problem. The fan inside the PSU is connected to a 2-pin socket while my fan is 3-pin. I was panic for a bit. Then I found this tutorial. Basically, I remove the plastic socket and then plug my 3-pin connector in so that red goes to red and black goes to black.

I booted up my computer again and voila it is whispering quiet. ^_^ I can finally sleep now.

Matte screen rules

2008-05-03T21:25:00Z

I have been complaining again and again about the glossy screen that I have on my laptop. I think it was the worst decision that I have made when I purchased it. Not only is this glossy screen useless in a well-litted environment like my lab and my library, it hurts my eyes by giving me reflection of light sources that I won't normally get from a matte screen. It is true that the color of a glossy screen is more saturated and thus gives a sense of better color to movies watched in dark lighting environment, such color is not a true representation of real color. That is, for photo processing or design related works, a matte screen is a very bad choice.

For a developer like me, I think matte screen is absolute needed. Most IDEs have buttons and status reports and all other kind of feedback that is placed all over the screens. The reflections on a glossy screen prevent me from seeing them all in a clear manner. IDEs generally have light background which is okay. However, nicer IDEs like Textmate and E have dark themes which improve viewability. However, these themes intensify the problem on my glossy monitor. Overall, I think that glossy screen is for playing. Like a post found in this thread, if you are seriously considering using your computer to do any work, get a matte screen.

My parents are visiting soon

2008-05-02T23:32:00Z

My parents are coming to visit me for a month starting next Monday. I better finish cleaning up the apartment plus all the finals that I have. Since I will be on travel for a while. Expect some downtime in my blogging. However, when I am back, expect lots of pictures and release 1.0 of BibSync - a biobliography management tool. Wait and be surprised Endnote Web.

My share of image rotation script

2008-05-02T04:48:00Z

Everybody and their brothers are coming up with free JS gallery scroll (rotation) scripts. More than a year ago, I came up with a basic image scrolling script for CBL website. UH NSMIT website was nice enough to took it and implemented it on their website too. Back then, there was no decent JS-only image scrolling script so mine was concocted with Mootols revision 83. Fast forward to today, I saw this rotation script on UH Student Handbook website. I thought: "Wow, that's neat". It turns out that the landscape for image rotation script has changed. Now, you can find many more JS scripts that make use of Mootools simplicity to do things like Fluid Anchors, Smooth Gallery.

What strikes me even more is the quality of Jon's code for his Smooth Gallery. The code was written in nice JSON and Javascript OO. I actually picked up quite a few tips and tricks from his code. It's a definitely good code if you want to take a look.

So what is left for me? I actually have just launched the new website of the lab which uses a newer version of my image rotation script. My script provides the ability to have a list of activators for the images so users can move quickly between images. I add tootips option to the link so users have a bit of clue what they are looking for. I am planning on incorporate this extra feature into Jon's script and ask him to release it along with his bundle.

Eclipse CDT 4.0, Intel Compiler 10.1 on x86_64

2008-04-27T20:08:00Z

Around a year ago, I tested out Intel Math Kernel Library (MKL). My task was to implement a function that calculate the distance between a point and triangle in 3D. According to Intel Vtune, this function is what our algorithm (which deals substaintly with 3D objects) uses the most. Even when not compiled using Intel Compiler, Intel Math Kernel Library performs extremely well for the task at hand. A minor change to MKL gives a 100% improvement in term of speed. Excited by this possibility, I wanted to rewrite this whole function to use Intel Compiler in conjunction with MKL. However, this task was postponed due to some other deadline at the time.

Yesterday, determined to give these performance libraries from Intel a better look, I downloaded Intel Professional Suite for Linux. Intel is nice enough to offer their full suite of professional development tools on the Linux platform to non-commercial developers for free. To my delight, Intel has worked hard to improve their installation compatibility with Ubuntu. Installation packages which used to give weird errors now blissfully run through. The installation of Eclipse extension is well documented. I simply add the correct path to the list of extension paths and Eclipse picks up the new configuration and plugins from Intel. Things were going well.

I decided to give the beloved "Hello World" program a run. This is where I get stumped. The wizard for creating a new Hello World C++ project does not allow me to specify Intel Toolchain. "Weird!", I told myself. I spent several hours last night trying to figure out what was wrong. This morning, I found out that Intel extension for eclipse is not compatible with Eclipse CDT 4.0 x86_64. I found this out while digging through the confusing naming of different architectures (IA32, IA64, EMT64, Intel 64). So, I am here again, back to square one.

My hopeful wishes of finally be able to show my fellow lab mates how cool Intel toolchain is on my Eclipse x86_64 has come to a halt. Come on Intel, I have been to your campus and met your great minds. You can do better than this. Give us 64-bit compatible toolchain and we will grab it and run like crazy hackers who found zero-day exploits. After all, 64-bit has been around for long enough. It is time that at least academia (aka my work) makes the jump. Please Intel.

I am planning to try using GCC with MKL. If I am lucky, I still might be able to harness its power. For the next post, I will give some details on how it goes. I will probably throw in some CPPUnit testing to make sure that the function still work as it is expected.

The story of my 4.0

2008-04-25T06:06:00Z

While I never mention my GPA unless specifically asked, some people do know that I have a 4.0 for as long as I have my education here in the States. I started out at Northern Virginia Community College and then transfered to University of Houston in 2006. Now that I am graduating with a 4.0 in Computer Science, I get to know yet another rule of our great university: honor graduate requires 66 credits completed at UH. I have 59. I told myself: "Great, so I have take 2 freshman level classes to prove to others that I deserve some small golden text that says "Summa Cum Laude" on a piece of paper." The decision wasn't so hard to make.

What I find unfathomable in this rule is: how can one still graduate and not recognized so. If our university is so vehement about the 66 credits requirement, why not just make it so that everyone has to take 66 credits before he/she can graduate from our university? Well, I feel stupid for even writing this post since I honestly do not care enough.

On a side note, my PhD candidacy at University of Houston is going to start next Fall. This will be great. I am ready to show the world what I am made of.

That day

2008-04-19T23:32:00Z

I have decided that day to be December 31, 2011. This will be the day that I was accepted into my dream company. I want to work at the company which innovative products continously capture its users. I want to be working for that company at which their next launch will instantly guarantee applauses from its users. I want to stand out and be part of that group of smart engineers who will conquer the most challenging problem.

Albeit, everybody knows what company I am referring to. However, not everyone knows what is needed to be part of that team. So here will be the things that I will become experts in

Image and Video Analysis (very closely related to my PhD thesis)
C++ (not just some random C++ programmer, I want to be the expert)
Java (a cup every morning keeps me awake)
Python (I love Ruby but Python is equally good)
XHTML, Javascript, CSS (I know that people say that I am already good at this, but it takes skills to become the master)

Projects that I will work on for the next several years

Bibsync : noone comes close and noone will
my PhD thesis written completely in C/C++ with Qt and probably XUL/XAML/Flex frontend. I am thinking of putting Rybyqt4 into the mix and spice things up.
pam_urxd (to be announced later)

Hopefully with a solid background in the above skill, an undying passion to explore and a PhD in Computer Science, I will land the job of my dream. Time to work on it. I have only 1300 days left.

You have got to be kidding me

2008-04-15T03:02:00Z

Aside from reading a pretty good article of Paul Graham today about startups, I was checking out Dojo Toolkit since I have had multiple urge to put more Javascript toolkit under my belt. Either that or I was trying to write some neat banner rotation ^_^.

As I dutifully read through Dojo spotlight and example page, I came across this demonstration of their tookit. I found myself laughing so hard. Putting sharp similarity as a way to say: "hey we rock that too" is just genius. Thanks Dojo. I thinking I am ready to try you guys out.

Hardy Heron and Fedora 8

2008-04-14T00:00:00Z

It is about 10 more days until Ubuntu officially launches its newest version: Hardy Heron. As always, I try to get my foot into the repository before the launch date so that I won't get bogged down when everyone is downloading the new update in frenzy. I had my x86_64 Ubuntu upgraded to Hardy without any hiccup. I barely notice anything new aside from a newly available theme that looks nicer to the eye. The bootsplash image got a little change but aside from that, my Ubuntu box is still humming away.

I thought "Meh". So today, I downloaded Fedora Core 8 and install it as one of my virtual machines. One thing that I notice about Fedora is that its installation wizard looks really sleek and polished. I have no problem understanding that it says. The choice of font and color blends very well too. After the smooth installation, I have a fully working Fedora Core desktop. The default selection of software is the same as Ubuntu and the menus are the same. I played around with it for a while and came to the conclusion that Fedora Core is an rpm-Ubuntu with blue theme ^_^.

For fans of each project, I see little need to switch over or to declare superiority over the other. I am glad that they are constantly improving the user experience. Now, if only I would get some decent software, it would be great. Here is my wishlist

new Office product that gets a face lift
a decent photo organizer (at least on par with Picasa). Either that or Picasa should just port their version.

Linux, rocks on.

Intype is dead

2008-04-09T05:42:00Z

Have the right tools makes all the difference. OS X users have been enjoying Textmate for a while. For Windows users, you can use e-text editor. I used to use a different text editor called InType. It has quite a few nice features that does make typing code a much more pleasurable activity. However, I have not seen them releasing any new code for a while. The last activity was back in August of 2007. That was more than 6 months ago. Too bad E already got the finish line and reached that usable point of software. Sorry Intype. You should have tried harder.